Hibernate ORM 4.1 Final out

The latest update to the popular JBoss ORM framework arrives with a few bonus features

Admittedly, we’re a few weeks late to this release but it’s
important to note that the JBoss object-relational
mapping (ORM) framework for Java, Hibernate
ORM 4.1 has surfaced, as the team promised it would back
in December.

Aside from the obligatory bug fixes and performance upgrades,
there’s three new features to salivate over. These include a
new API
for loading by natural identifiers, the addition of a TenantIdentifierResolver
for use with multitenancy use cases and the ability to provide
dirty custom
handling.

Most of the rejigging this time round comes in the form of a
brand spanking new look JPA/HEM documentation, under the guises
of Hibernate Reference
Documentation and Hibernate Developer Guide.
Mostly annotation/mapping information appears in the former, while
everything else is in the latter.

Check out the full release notes for all the details of what is
new within Hibernate 4.1. Another important piece of information
that the team want to clear up is the name. The project formerly
known as ‘Hibernate Core’ is no more, now opting for the much
better and easier to understand Hibernate ORM. It does exactly what
it says on the tin. Steve Ebersole clears up the matter:

A brief history is that initially there was
just Hibernate, but as the team started
working on related projects (Hibernate Search,
etc.) we agreed to refer to what had been
just Hibernate as Hibernate
Core. We recently decided that
the core portion of the name was just
a bad choice, as it does not give any clue as to the intent.
Hence Hibernate ORM.

That’s that cleared up then. Hibernate is certainly
motoring on with development and we await a next substantial
release.